5 days ago, on 4th June 2018, popular YouTuber Shane Dawson, uploaded one of his most watched segments about conspiracy theories. The videos in this one usually take a look at various conspiracy theories, some well-known but many on the bizarre side.
One part of this conspiracy theory video though was about popular South Korean band BTS and how the K-pop industry is extremely harmful, unethical, dark, filled with slave contracts and more.
Among the many groups he showed, BTS was one of them and said things like how ‘fans have caught some members vomiting off the stage’ etc. with clips of them ‘coughing on stage’, a member Jimin ‘accidentally stumbling a bit backstage’ and more.
He even then mentions their recent signing on with Columbia Records that is owned by Sony Music and how that is even more dangerous considering Sony’s own shady business.
How Dawson Is Wrong?
While I am not denying that the K-pop industry is definitely problematic and has a lot of really dark and disturbing sides of it, even slave contracts are a reality, BTS is not a part of it at all.
First off, let us take the factual incorrectness of where he assumes to think that since BTS signed on with Columbia Records that the latter have any control over them.
That is not true since Columbia Records will, as per sources, only be handling the distribution and management of BTS in the US. If Dawson had only done a bit of research he would have known that BTS is still owned by Big Hit, their South Korean parent company and will not be directly under Sony or Columbia.
He even showed extremely wrong and taken out of context clips of one member Jungkook getting some treatment when he started feeling unwell after a concert performance. The reality is that the clip was from BTS’ YouTube Red documentary-style series called ‘Burn The Stage’ wherein it was clearly shown that this thing was a first for the members.
The members showed a very real and true side to themselves during the series, something that is not very common in the K-Pop industry by telling how their life was not as happy and that they had to work a lot and bear through much in order to get this success.
But this is not the first time Dawson has used BTS to well…. get views you could say.
A video released on April 4th, 2018 also mentioned BTS when in fact the actual BTS part was negligible. The conspiracy theory was rather about a creepy app that allowed one to chat with their idol. But the starting was with the use of BTS, and a pic of them was used in the thumbnail.
Dawson also showed 2 other chats with other K-pop idols, but did not mention their names or their band name only choosing to clarify when it was about Jungkook from BTS.
Just specifically mentioning BTS seemed more like a clickbait to lure in the fans by just using their name while the actual theory has little to do with the band.
Although, after being pointed out his mistakes by the BTS ARMY fans, he did eventually apologise.
How BTS Is Different?
One of the biggest reasons for BTS’ success has been not only their different style of music, but even the way they have been managed by their company till now.
The artists are in control of their social media and handle it themselves, and more than anything are extensively involved in their music and albums being produced.
Leader RM is usually credited in a majority of the songs on most of their albums with Suga and J-Hope too being credited a number of times for producing, writing lyrics, mixing, arrangement and more.
In fact, for their recent album Love Yourself: Tear, vocalist Jungkook even forayed into producing by co-producing and composing the song Magic Shop.
In a 2017 interview with OSEN, a Korean outlet, and translated by fan Peachisodaworld, the CEO Bang Shi Hyuk said that,
“Musical-wise, I wish them to continue doing their thing. I hope they will continue to do music because they want to and feel delighted while doing it, not because it’s their work. I hope they will grow so they can do their music as individual artists in the future.”
He has even stated that when it comes to their music, the group has their creative freedom to do what they want and that “it’s not right for [Big Hit] to interfere with their music” and also that “the members’ intention is the most important thing.”
This kind of creative liberty over music is not very common in the K-pop industry.
Even their health is given priority with Big Hit giving up on projects and more in order to not cut down on the resting period of the band. Recently, BTS did not perform at the closing ceremony to the 2018 Winter Olympics held in South Korea despite being invited to do so.
Some speculate that it was due to scheduling conflict while some fans did notice that BTS were on a vacation or on break during that time. A few even thought that it was because of the recent surgery of RM for his deviated septum that would have affected his ability to perform live.
And while it might not be a very unique thing, but BTS are not just money-making machines churning out performances but most of the members even have college and post-graduate degrees that can help them later in life.
While members RM, Suga, J-Hope, Jimin, V and Jungkook have all either done or are currently enrolled into the Global Cyber University, Jin has already completed his bachelors from Konkuk University and will soon be finishing his masters in films major from the Hanyang Cyber University.
BTS Being Used For Clickbait
One thing we do need to understand from all this is that if only Shane Dawson had done a bit of research, he probably wouldn’t have added their names to the video.
And while it might be wrong to not do research, however, with the growing popularity of the band, this is just an inevitable thing that will happen more often.
There will be pages and people who will want to use their name just to get views and grab eyeballs without really putting much effort into the actual contents of it.
Image Credits: Google Images
Sources: YouTube, Wikipedia, SBS PopAsia + more
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